‘Nor I,’ Sir George said drily.  ’Or I should not have betted with March.’

‘And the old house!’ the doctor continued, more and more moved.  ’I don’t know one more comfortable.’

‘You must buy it,’ said Soane.  ’I have spared the timber, and there is a little of the old wine left.’

‘Dear, dear!’ the doctor answered; and his sigh said more than the words.  Apparently it was also more effectual in moving Sir George.  He rose and began to pace the room, choosing a part where his face evaded the light of the candles that stood in heavy silver sconces on the dark mahogany.  Presently he laughed, but the laugh was mirthless.

‘It is quite the Rake’s Progress,’ he said, pausing before one of Hogarth’s prints which hung on the wall.  ’Perhaps I have been a little less of a fool and a little more of a rogue than my prototype; but the end is the same.  D——­n me, I am sorry for the servants, doctor—­though I dare swear that they have robbed me right and left.  It is a pity that clumsy fool, Dunborough, did not get home when he had the chance the other day.’

The doctor took snuff, put up his box, filled his glass and emptied it before he spoke.  Then, ’No, no, Sir George, it has not come to that yet,’ he said heartily.  ’There is only one thing for it now.  They must do something for you.’  And he also rose to his feet, and stood with his back to the fire, looking at his companion.

‘Who?’ Soane asked, though he knew very well what the other meant.

‘The Government,’ said the doctor.  ’The mission to Turin is likely to be vacant by-and-by.  Or, if that be too much to ask, a consulship, say at Genoa or Leghorn, might be found, and serve for a stepping-stone to Florence.  Sir Horace has done well there, and you—­’

’Might toady a Grand-duke and bear-lead sucking peers—­as well as another!’ Soane answered with a gesture of disgust.  ’Ugh, one might as well be Thomasson and ruin boys.  No, doctor, that will not do.  I had sooner hang myself at once, as poor Fanny Braddock did at Bath, or put a pistol to my head like Bland!’

‘God forbid!’ said the doctor solemnly.

Sir George shrugged his shoulders, but little by little his face lost its hardness.  ‘Yes, God forbid,’ he said gently.  ’But it is odd.  There is poor Tavistock with a pretty wife and two children, and another coming; and Woburn and thirty thousand a year to inherit, broke his neck last week with the hounds; and I, who have nothing to inherit, why nothing hurts me!’

Dr. Addington disregarded his words.

‘They must do something for you at home then,’ he said, firmly set on his benevolent designs.  ’In the Mint or the Customs.  There should not be the least difficulty about it.  You must speak to his lordship, and it is not to be supposed that he will refuse.’

Sir George grunted, and might have expressed his doubts, but at that moment the sound of voices raised in altercation penetrated the room from the passage.  A second later, while the two stood listening, arrested by the noise, the door was thrown open with such violence that the candles flickered in the draught.  Two persons appeared on the threshold, the one striving to make his way in, the other to resist the invasion.